The charred remains of a house on Feb. 8, 2025. The home burned during the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
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Jules Hotz
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CalMatters
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Topline:
CalMatters interviewed five leading candidates who want to regulate one of the world’s biggest insurance markets. Here’s what they said.
Why it matters: Picking the next insurance commissioner could be one of the most important decisions Californians make for their wallets this election year. They may have seen a big increase in their insurance premiums in the past couple of years. They might know someone whose homeowners policy got canceled. Or perhaps they’re trying to rebuild after last year’s deadly Los Angeles County fires.
The backstory: Whoever is elected to succeed Commissioner Ricardo Lara will have a long to-do list. For the past few years, insurance companies have paused writing homeowner policies or reduced their presence in California. That’s starting to change because of industry-friendly regulations Lara put in place, but premiums are still rising and the market cannot be described as healthy yet.
Read on... for the guide to the candidates.
Picking the next insurance commissioner could be one of the most important decisions Californians make for their wallets this election year.
They may have seen a big increase in their insurance premiums in the past couple of years. They might know someone whose homeowners policy got canceled. Or perhaps they’re trying to rebuild after last year’s deadly Los Angeles County fires.
If you’re not sure what the insurance commissioner does, here’s a rundown:
Regulates the nation’s largest property and casualty insurance market, which includes policies for homeowners, businesses, landlords, renters and drivers.
Leads the Insurance Department, which reviews and approves premium rate increases.
Regulates life, health and workers’ compensation insurance.
Whoever is elected to succeed Commissioner Ricardo Lara will have a long to-do list. For the past few years, insurance companies have paused writing homeowner policies or reduced their presence in California. That’s starting to change because of industry-friendly regulations Lara put in place, but premiums are still rising and the market cannot be described as healthy yet.
The L.A.-area fires last year highlighted other problems, such as homeowners dealing with insurers delaying or denying claims, discovering they were underinsured, or finding out there are no standards for smoke-damage claims. Frustrated fire survivors called for Lara to step down.
In a recent poll commissioned by the Insurance Fairness Project, a national insurance information hub, 62% of likely voters said they are very concerned about the cost of home insurance and 43% said they are not confident at all that California’s insurance system can withstand future extreme weather disasters.
Former insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who held the position two separate times and is now a U.S. congressmember, calls the commissioner job the second-hardest in the state behind the governor. Another former commissioner, Dave Jones, said the next commissioner needs to keep a closer eye on insurance companies and regularly examine their conduct, creating “clear enforcement triggers.” He worked on a blueprint with recommendations galore for Lara’s successor.
About a dozen candidates are officially vying for the position, though not all of them have active campaigns. The two who receive the most votes in June’s primary will move on to the November ballot.
CalMatters interviewed the five candidates who have raised the most money for their campaigns.
All of them are calling for more transparency and accountability from insurance companies within the law that governs insurance in the state, Proposition 103. They want to help reduce fire risk at the individual and community level. Most of them agree California should try to hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable for climate risks that are helping drive up insurance costs.
They want to reduce Californians’ dependence on the FAIR Plan, the insurer that’s mandated to sell fire insurance to those who can’t buy it from individual insurance companies. At the end of 2025, the plan had nearly 650,000 noncommercial dwelling policies, up from about 264,000 in 2022.
Here is how each candidate, in alphabetical order, plans to tackle the challenges.
Ben Allen
State Sen. Ben Allen.
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Photo via the California State Senate
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Last year’s massive fires in the L.A. area hit the senator’s district. Along with other insurance-related bills, Allen has introduced legislation that would give the commissioner more power to hold insurance companies accountable. After hearing from his constituents about the department’s handling of their problems after the fires, he wants to boost the number of staff handling consumer complaints and create a consumer advocate position in the insurance department, he told CalMatters.
Allen, a Democrat, would take a more comprehensive approach to risk reduction, including by creating funding sources such as state-backed loans for hardening homes, and by bringing together insurers, builders, local governments, firefighters and the state to work on solutions. As part of reducing risk, he wants to restrict new construction in high-risk zones, saying developers who are building in such areas are “basically freeloading off the rest of us.” He also wants to “carefully and sensitively” find a way to incentivize those already living in risky areas to move elsewhere.
The senator — a lawyer who will be termed out of the Legislature, where he has worked on environmental issues — said his eyes are wide open about how tough the job would be, but believes he has and can create the relationships needed, including with an incoming governor, to address the issues. On the role of intervenors, members of the public who can challenge insurers’ rate reviews, he indicated he needed to look into it further and that they shouldn’t be slowing down rate reviews — adopting a refrain by the current commissioner, who is seeking to reduce intervenors’ power.
He has received the most endorsements from the who’s-who of state politics, including Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, both U.S. senators from California, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, and more than two dozen state lawmakers. Jones, the former commissioner, also endorsed him.
Steven Bradford
Steven Bradford.
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Photo via the California State Senate Archive
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The former Southern California senator and assemblymember would establish a public-private partnership that would share risk with insurers to keep them in the state. What that would look like needs more exploration, Bradford told CalMatters.
The Democrat, a former executive at the utility company Southern California Edison, would invite insurance companies “to the table” when discussing land use and planning, and support a voluntary buyout program to encourage people to move away from high-risk areas.
He said funding could come from expanding an existing program in the insurance department called the California Organized Investment Network, which is backed by the insurance industry and invests in underserved communities, environmentally friendly and affordable housing projects, and more. Insurers’ investments in the program have grown from tens of millions of dollars to more than $1 billion in 2023, according to the commissioner’s annual report in 2024.
Bradford would push insurers for clear explanations when they raise rates, saying it won’t be easy but that because the state’s insurance market is so big, it “would behoove them to do what they can to be partners with California.”
He is endorsed by U.S. Reps. Adam Gray and Luz Rivas, state Treasurer Fiona Ma and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, plus Teamsters California, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and other labor groups.
Merritt Farren
Merritt Farren.
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Photo courtesy of Merritt Farren’s campaign
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The Pacific Palisades home of the former Amazon and Disney executive was destroyed in last year’s fires. He became an intervenor and pushed for more information on State Farm’s request to raise its rates as a result of the fires, which led to his campaign for commissioner.
Farren, a Republican, would create CAL Reinsure so the state could provide a backstop for insurers. The entity would be funded by a fee charged by insurers and would eliminate the need for the FAIR Plan because companies would be more inclined to write policies, he told CalMatters. The authority could issue bonds that could be sold in the commercial market, and would be backed by the state, like municipal bonds.
He would want to “revamp” regulations that get in the way of allowing new insurance products in the market, saying that he wishes insurers had a premium product that charged customers more but would “pay out immediately on loss without putting them through the drama and trauma they have to go through today.”
Farren said he sees the commissioner’s job as one of consumer advocacy, and invoked his days at Amazon, where he says the motto was to be the most customer-centric company in the world. “You can be a consumer advocate and still appreciate the fact that there will be no insurance for consumers without insurance companies,” he said.
Jane Kim
Jane Kim.
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Photo via Jane Kim’s campaign
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The lawyer, consumer advocate and former San Francisco supervisor told CalMatters that the commissioner’s office has been “under-leveraged” and has the levers to protect people from the powerful insurance industry.
Kim, a Democrat and head of the California Working Families Party, has three main proposals around more government involvement, the main one to create “natural disaster insurance for all.” It would be funded by a portion of policyholder premiums that insurance companies would pass along to the state. The state would manage the fund, which would guarantee fire and flood coverage. Insurance companies would continue to provide coverage for other risks. It’s not her idea — New Zealand has the same system, and it allows the country to invest the premiums in preventive measures, she said. Establishing such a system in California could allow the state to invest profit from premiums that would have gone to insurers’ shareholders in its communities instead, she said.
She would establish a public option for auto insurance by expanding eligibility for an existing program that provides low-cost insurance to drivers who make less than $38,000 a year.
Kim also wants to provide Medicare for kids. She believes California should centralize all insurance authority within the insurance department instead of having managed health care handled by the Managed Health Care Department.
She acknowledges that her biggest ideas are for the long term and will require her to win over naysayers.
“I’ve heard it — ‘She doesn’t know anything,’ ” Kim said. “We’re all so tired of seeing candidates that don’t have political courage.”
Kim is endorsed by some big names, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — she was California political director for his presidential campaign in 2020 — Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressmember, and unions such as SEIU California, the California Teachers Association and the UFCW Western States Council.
Patrick Wolff
Patrick Wolff.
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Photo via the Patrick Wolff campaign website
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The financial analyst, a Democrat who lives in San Francisco and has never held public office, obtained an insurance license ahead of his run for commissioner. Wolff told CalMatters that he has invested his own money in his campaign — $600,000, according to campaign finance records — and simply wants to help fix the problems he sees in the insurance market. “It would be the honor of my lifetime if I can do this job and really do this job well,” he said.
Wolff would create a report card that would grade how insurers handle claims based on existing market conduct annual surveys of insurance companies, which is now anonymized but which he would push to be identifiable. He said that would let the insurance department help customers decide which insurers to reward or punish for their behavior.
He would consider allowing auto insurers to use telematics, which companies use in other states to track driver behavior for underwriting purposes. He said it could help for more accurate underwriting and possibly even lower auto insurance premiums, but acknowledged privacy concerns around the technology and said insurance companies should be prohibited from sharing or selling driver information.
Wolff would roll out a dashboard that would disclose complaints about providers of life insurance. The insurance department is not making that data public, and he doesn’t see why not, he said.
Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published August 10, 2026 6:44 PM
L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman at a mayoral campaign event in May 2026.
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Aaron Schrank
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LAist
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Topline:
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman will lose her spot as chair of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, she confirmed in a campaign video Monday. Raman, who is running for mayor, claims her removal is politically motivated.
Why it matters: Raman is running against incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass in the November election. The councilmember has been chair of the Housing and Homeless Committee since 2023, where she’s had considerable power and responsibility.
Why now: The California Post reported that L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawsonis planning to announce this week that the city will split the committee into two parts — one on housing, the other on homelessness — neither of which will be led by Raman. Harris-Dawson, a longtime political ally of Bass, represents a large portion of South Los Angeles. He did not immediately respond to LAist’s inquiry late Monday.
Raman's reaction: Raman said in the campaign ad the move was a political attack. “I called for an audit of our homelessness programs in Los Angeles, and now I’ve been removed as Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee,” Raman said. “I might be getting punished for running against Mayor Bass, but Angelenos are the ones paying the price for these political games.”
Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published August 10, 2026 4:41 PM
President Joe Biden will reportedly permanently ban future offshore oil and gas drilling in over 625 million acres of federal waters in an effort to cement his environmental legacy before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated January 20th. Platform Esther is located approximately 1.5 miles away from Seal Beach and operates within California state waters.
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Mario Tama/Getty Images
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Getty Images North America
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Topline:
Hearings being held this week could decide whether California continues to have a say over what happens in federal waters off its coast. It’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to supercharge industrial activities, including offshore drilling, rocket launches and desalination plants along California’s coast.
Why now: The hearings aim to gather public comments as part of a performance review of the state’s coastal management practices. Dozens of people turned out Monday to decry the administration's review.
Read on ... to learn how to give public comment.
Hearings being held this week could decide whether California continues to have a say over what happens in federal waters off the state’s coast.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to supercharge industrial activities, including offshore drilling, rocket launches and desalination plants along California’s coast. At a hearing Monday at a Santa Monica hotel and at a news conference beforehand, speaker after speaker decried any effort that would allow the federal government to revoke California's ability to manage its coast.
A federal law called the Coastal Zone Management Act gives states with coastlines the right to review and veto projects that may conflict with state policies and economies. The law was signed by President Richard Nixon after a devastating oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara and is credited with launching the modern environmental movement.
In a May social media post, the Trump administration said California is standing in the way of economic progress and called the state’s coastal management practices “obstructionist” and “environmental extremism.”
California officials, including state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, dispute that, saying the state approves federal initiatives 96% of the time.
“ Never before in the five-decade history of this federal act has this sudden baseless review taken place on any state's coastal management program, and never before in the history of this act has a coastal management program ever been revoked,” Crowfoot said at a news conference in Santa Monica on Monday. ”This federal administration is bent on industrializing our coast.”
The hearings, which are being administered by NOAA, could result in the federal government decertifying California’s rights under the Coastal Zone Management Act. A decision to do so would almost certainly be challenged in court, experts say.
That possibility has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to call on Californians to submit public comments on the issue.
“Give the Trump administration an earful,” Newsom said in a statement.
How to get involved
NOAA will accept public comment until midnight Aug. 22. You can attend a virtual hearing or submit a comment via email.
Virtual hearings:
When: Aug. 11 and 12, 2 to 5 p.m.
Where: Virtual.
How: Each person who wants to attend either meeting must electronically register by 11:59 p.m. Aug. 10. Attendance will be limited to 1,000 people, and NOAA asks you only register for one meeting. After you register, you’ll receive a link to attend. To register for either meeting, use the following link: https://noaabroadcast.adobeconnect.com/e23ewcr5d65q/event/event_info.html.
Submit comment via email to czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov. Include “Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program” in the subject line.
The hearings this week are solely for public comment. The review “seeks any new input from relevant stakeholders regarding spaceport infrastructure, offshore oil production, pipeline maintenance, desalination projects, and undersea cables,” according to a notice in the federal register.
Such reviews have happened before — in 2024 a draft review by NOAA found the state’s coastal agencies had properly carried out the CZMA. The review, however, was not finalized due to the change in administration.
“ L.A. County will soon achieve 100% renewable and reliable electricity. This is the change that we want to see,” she said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration is recklessly starting foreign wars and skyrocketing the price at the pump.”
L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath also spoke Monday at the news conference ahead of the NOAA hearing in Santa Monica.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Tina Calderon, Gabrielino Tongva and Chumash culture bearer, speaks at Monday's news conference.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Horvath is part of a coalition of local, state, tribal, environmental, legal and business leaders who are calling the review a “takeover” of state and local rights.
Orange County resident Grant Bixby, who founded the Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, pointed out at the news conference that offshore drilling makes up a tiny fraction of the state’s coastal economy, which generates between $44 billion and $50 billion a year, according to NOAA.
"Should we put 99% of the other employment at risk for the benefit of one dirty industry?” Bixby said.
Bixby recalled how the 2021 Huntington Beach oil spill turned the beaches into a “ghost town.”
The NOAA hearing was held in a ballroom at the Santa Monica Hilton.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Among the speakers at the news conference and hearing, a clear theme emerged: The coast is an integral part of being a Californian, whether you’re lucky enough to live beachside or you live inland and have a favorite spot to call your own on hot summer days.
“The point is that we all love our beautiful saltwaters,” said Tina Calderon, Gabrielino Tongva and Chumash culture bearer, at the news conference. “These are sacred waters, and it's up to us to be the voice. It's up to us to cause no more human harm. We've done enough.”
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Jackie and her partner Shadow had successfully fledged six chicks together over the years at their Big Bear nest.
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The Ojai Raptor Center
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Instagram
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Topline:
Jackie, the bald eagle whose livestreamed life with her partner Shadow won the hearts of fans worldwide, has died, rescuersannounced Monday.
What we know: The famous eagle, believed to be 14 years old, was receiving intensive care at the Ojai Raptor Center for severe anemia.
Read on … for more on Jackie’s life.
Jackie, the bald eagle whose livestreamed life with her partner Shadow won the hearts of fans worldwide, has died, rescuers announced Monday.
The famous raptor, believed to be 14 years old, was receiving intensive care at the Ojai Raptor Center for severe anemia. She ultimately succumbed to her condition after a team of veterinarians struggled for weeks to figure out what was causing it.
Jackie remained critically ill despite receiving oxygen therapy, supportive treatment and around-the-clock monitoring.
"We know this news will be deeply felt by the many thousands of people around the world who have followed her journey, hoped alongside us, prayed for her, and supported the people caring for her,” the Ojai Raptor Center said in an Instagram post. “Our team is heartbroken. It has been an extraordinary privilege to care for her."
Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that launched the popular nest livestream in 2015, confirmed the news on social media.
“It is with great sadness and heavy hearts, to bring you the latest update from Ojai Raptor Center,” the nonprofit said to its roughly 1.3 million Facebook followers. “Please be kind to yourself, to others, to the FOBBV team and to those at the Ojai Raptor Center. Soar free Jackie…”
What happened to her?
The rescue center said on social media Sunday that she was “critically ill,” “unstable” and still in an "extremely serious” condition.
She was getting oxygen therapy, supportive treatment and around-the-clock care from vets and specialists across the country. But her red blood cell levels continued to drop well below normal after rebounding a bit after she was rescued.
Jackie was rescued in July by Big Bear’s Dana Point Park after a brief fight with two other eagles. Jackie was weak, vulnerable, underweight and unable to fly, according to the Ojai Raptor Center.
The center said the fight is likely what left her grounded, but her condition suggests she had been sick for some time.
How Jackie’s Big Bear saga started
Jackie was the matriarch of the famous Big Bear bald eagle nest since around 2017. She’s believed to be the first bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley in recent history, according to the nonprofit.
The pair believed to be her parents, Ricky and Lucy, left the area around 2016. The young Jackie then started hanging out in their old nest, where the livestream camera had been installed.
Jackie took on her first mate, a bald eagle known as Mr. B, and laid her first clutch of eggs in the nest the following season. Shadow came into the picture in the summer of 2018, refusing to leave until Mr. B eventually flew away from the area, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.
Jackie and Shadow were mates ever since. They successfully raised six chicks together — Sandy and Luna this season, Sunny and Gizmo last year, Spirit in 2022 and Simba in 2019.
Amid growing frustration with both major political parties, voters are open to some big changes.
More details: A new poll, commissioned by supporters of election reforms and shared with NPR, shows there is significant support for upending winner-take-all U.S. House elections and single-member congressional districts and instead moving toward proportional representation, a system that elects multiple representatives in a single district in rough proportion to a party's vote share.
Why now: Earlier this summer, about 500 democracy and legal experts sent a letter to Congress urging members to consider proportional representation as a solution to the redistricting brinksmanship set off by President Donald Trump last year.
Read on... for more on the poll.
Amid growing frustration with both major political parties, voters are open to some big changes.
A new poll, commissioned by supporters of election reforms and shared with NPR, shows there is significant support for upending winner-take-all U.S. House elections and single-member congressional districts and instead moving toward proportional representation, a system that elects multiple representatives in a single district in rough proportion to a party's vote share.
Earlier this summer, about 500 democracy and legal experts sent a letter to Congress urging members to consider proportional representation as a solution to the redistricting brinksmanship set off by President Donald Trump last year.
"There should be little doubt that the single-member district system is failing to deliver fair and representative outcomes," they wrote. "We urge Congress to adopt a proportional system of representation, solving the gerrymandering problem at its source."
According to the poll conducted by the advocacy group Fix Our House and liberal think tank New America, half of 1,000 respondents said they support proportional representation, with nearly a quarter opposed. A third of those who participated said they were not sure whether they supported it or not.
Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, said he was surprised to see how much backing there is for proportional representation, despite the idea being fairly obscure in the United States.
"It really did shock me how supportive people were of the various principles of proportional representation across the board," he told NPR.
While support was highest among younger, more educated, more left-leaning voters, Drutman found that 6 in 10 Trump voters who have an opinion on proportional representation said they back it, too.
American voters want more political parties
Pollsters also walked respondents through some of the tradeoffs of proportional representation — including that it can lead to multiple parties having to find a way to work together.
"For every one of those questions, people prefer the proportional system with multiple parties," Drutman said, "even if it leads to a coalition government that is maybe not quite as efficient."
He said voters also weren't very concerned when asked about the possibility of proportional representation leading to some more extreme political parties.
"One thing people said is they already think the parties are pretty extreme right now," Drutman explained. "So that's not quite the fear that some in the political class think it would be."
Jocelyn Kiley, director of political research at the Pew Research Center, said voters writ large have been in a "prolonged period of disaffection with politics and the political system."
She said Pew has found there is a lot of openness to reform, with nearly 70% of respondents to its polls saying they wish, at least somewhat, there were more political parties to choose from.
Kiley said detailed knowledge of what any election reform would look like is rare among voters. And she said that when many reforms "move from theory to practice," they often hit some resistance.
"People want to understand exactly how that reform will impact them," she said.
Room for a national conversation
Drutman told NPR the new poll numbers mark a starting point for what could be a national conversation about how to break out of the country's two-party system.
"People are dissatisfied," he said. "People are frustrated. People don't have a language for how to talk about alternatives because they haven't really heard all that much about the alternatives, because we haven't had a national conversation about the alternatives yet. So, there's a lot of room to have that conversation."
Drutman said only about a quarter of the respondents were aware that there are alternatives to a two-party system, and even fewer people could name an alternative when pressed.
In fact, only about 2% of the participants in the poll could name proportional representation off the top of their heads, said Dustin Wahl, executive director of Fix Our House,
"But when asked about the kind of underlying values beneath it and the component parts, there was widespread support from all across the political spectrum," Wahl said. "And that's not something we would have expected to see necessarily four years ago, for instance. But as the problems grow, the desire for solutions grows, as well."
Proportional representation is currently the most widely used electoral system among the world's democracies. Wahl points out that the U.S., along with the likes of Canada and Australia, has a system that was abandoned long ago by other countries.
"Arguably the only reason we don't use proportional representation is because it wasn't used anywhere in the world at the time of [America's] founding," he said. "And we just kept doing elections the same way."
The poll also found a majority support (54%) for expanding the House, with 150 new members.
There are bills in Congress, with all Democratic co-sponsors, that would study or move the U.S. to a system of proportional representation, but Wahl said any bill that doesn't include expanding the House is "politically dead in the water" because without expansion, lawmakers have to choose to potentially vote themselves out of office.
"That [150-seat expansion] gives you enough of a cushion so that members, incumbents know that they're very likely to hold on to their seats," he said. "It wouldn't run into the problem, at all, of candidates or of sitting members of Congress thinking that they're going to lose their seats because their elections would be totally untouched."
Copyright 2026 NPR
